Some very very weird issue

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by ceo54, May 4, 2020.

  1. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

    Aug 13, 2015
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    Hi everyone,

    It's a very weird situation so please read it with patiance as I try my best to descriibe it.

    Day before yesterday, everything was working flawlessly but PC had so much bloatware from all the applications that I installed over time, I decided to do fresh install of Windows 8.1

    When I arrived at OOBE, PC was lagging. After I finished installing the drivers and softwares, it was lagging so much that I could say my name 5 times before a simple .txt file opens. When opening the control panel, I could see those icons loading one by one. And the same thing happens with my "Tools" folder where I keep the installation files of different programs.

    I didn't have this problem before I reformatted Windows, same machine, same ISO.

    So I went ahead and integrated the latest updates in the ISO offline. Then I did another fresh install. After I finished installing drivers and softwares, I fell into the same situation as before.

    To make sure this isn't related to my ISO, I installed it on another PC to check if it produces the same issue but nah, everything works fine there.

    So I concluded this is related to hardware and did some tests. Memory appears to be working fine, so is the hard disk. I tested these components with both, Windows in build tools and third party tools.

    Then I checked my applications one by one. My Digital audio workstation won't close after clicking the close button, it freezes for about 10 seconds, status goes to "not responding" then it closes itself. My Video player works fine with x264 videos that don't require GPU based decoding but when I play HEVC x265 videos, as soon as I fast forward on the seek bar, player hangs, and when I click the close button, or try to open another video over it, it too goes to "not responding" status. Then I have to close it from task manager. Moreover, when I change the configuration to use FFmpeg decoder instead of D3D11 Intel HD Graphics, problem goes away.

    Both of these applications are GPU dependent, rest of the applications working fine.

    I'm not sure but I suspect it's the Intel GPU that might be the culprit here.

    I did everything from using pagefile to defregmenting the disks to updating the Intel graphic driver but none seems to have any effect on the issue.

    I have given up, I have no clue as to what might be causing it. System was running fine until I decided to reformat and reinstall the OS.

    I looked around on the internet to see if there's a utility to check the CPU/GPU performance, I found some Intel utilities but I'm sure if they will be able to tell me what's wrong. I haven't run any of those.
    .
    Please, if anyone has any ideas, I will be eternally grateful to you.

    Thank you for reading.
     
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  2. kaljukass

    kaljukass MDL Guru

    Nov 26, 2012
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    I would ask for such information
    1. what computer is this
    2. what processor do you have, what is its freguency
    3. what and how much RAM you have, how much is actually in use
    4. how large the page file is allowed
    5. what hard drive do you have (HDD, SSD or something else)
    6. how big is the partition where you installed the OS
    7. what does "I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 8.1" mean?
    PS. If you can't answer all the questions, answer them that you know for sure.
     
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  3. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

    Aug 13, 2015
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  4. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    Okay I just watched a music video on youtube in 1080p in full screen, didn't stutter at all.

    If the GPU could process that video, surely it could process my icons better then that.

    It might not be related to GPU, it might be something to do with the allocation of the RAM or maybe priorities of the processes.

    I don't know, I need someone more knowledgeable then me to debug this for me.
     
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  5. kaljukass

    kaljukass MDL Guru

    Nov 26, 2012
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    If it's all like you said, it's hard to guess what the reason is, but I would still like to make one suggestion.
    Namely, enable page file - the recommended option would be "System managed size".
    True, this is probably not the cause or the solution.
    I don't have no more ideas at the moment.
     
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  6. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

    Aug 13, 2015
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    Okay I've enabled the pagefile,

    Thank you for taking interest in my issue @kaljukass

    I appreciate your effort.
     
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  7. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    Okay so I've done more tests. Everything checks out except for these two

    Code:
    The highest application responsiveness on your system was measured at 4.081 ms. This value is considered critical, your system does not appear responsive. However your kernel responsiveness is not considered poor, the problem may be caused by too many tasks running.
    And

    Code:
    The highest measured SM BIOS interrupt or other stall was 130 microseconds. This is considered poor behavior. Your system may have difficulty handling multimedia in real-time and may be subject to unexpected stutters and unresponsive behavior
    Can anyone tell me what these suppose to mean ?
     
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  8. kaljukass

    kaljukass MDL Guru

    Nov 26, 2012
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    Here is what happened with one my HDD about 1 year ago.
    My opinion is that there are some processes running in the background. I had a similar situation about a year ago where chkdsk /r ran in the background after each startup or reboot and it was not possible to disable any way.
    The solution was make a hard drive (HDD) completely blank (ie wipe\ overwrite with zeros absolutely everything) and then deep/full formating (NB! Not quick) and checkdisk again and after that everything was fine and the disk is still working without any problems.
     
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  9. MS_User

    MS_User MDL Guru

    Nov 30, 2014
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    #9 MS_User, May 4, 2020
    Last edited: May 5, 2020
    heres my opinion your HD is total garbage is a huge bottle neck on performance... i would dump it in the garbage and run a SSD and upgrade to win10.
     
  10. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    I've checked everything thoroughly and there's no such issue on my end. This has nothing to do with Windows, it's related to hardware as wiping the OS partition and re-installing the fresh Windows doesn't change anything. Besides, I installed this same ISO on another notebook and such issues there.

    Thanks for the reaction though.
     
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  11. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    The HDD was running fine 3 days ago. It all started when I re-installed the OS. I've tested HDD with HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, CheckDisk, HD Tune Pro, everything checks out. HDD is performing as intended.

    I think this is related to Chipset. Thanks for the reaction through.

    Also, why do you think Windows 10 will perform better then 8.1 ? are there any upgrades/enhancements that makes it perform better then 8.1 ??
     
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  12. kaljukass

    kaljukass MDL Guru

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    You are probably absolutely right, but don't forget that the HDD is one piece of hardware. But there may be hundred other pieces of hardware what may have problems. Sometimes even a contact, plug or cord can cause a lot of problems.
     
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  13. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    I concur. I've seen people talking those issues. I need someone better then me to debug.

    Thank you for being with me @kaljukass
     
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  14. MS_User

    MS_User MDL Guru

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    Make sure your charger or brick is also working properly....do u have another HD that u can install in that machine to make sure? remember heat is the number one killer in laptop HD it doesnt matter that diagnostic came back negative on the HD try with a different one...good luck.
     
  15. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    Yes, I have WD passport. I can install Windows on it, make it bootable and then boot from it.

    Worth trying out, thanks for the tip.
     
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  16. chillgates

    chillgates MDL Senior Member

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    Check hdd for bad sectors. If there are no bad sectors, remove all partitions, create again and do a full format and re-install OS again. Usually OS do a quick format while installing. It is not good if you have bad sectors in hdd. After iinstalling, set your pagefile to one and half times bigger than your RAM size ( 8 Gb Ram = 12 Gb page file). Never disable pagefile at all. Check for viruses once with kaspersky removal tool. Always use direct ISO from M$. Don't rely on 3rd party uploads. If problem still there, try to install old drivers if you have. Some times a buggy driver will slow down system.
     
  17. boyonthebus

    boyonthebus MDL Expert

    Sep 16, 2018
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    This shows a hardware problem. I would suspect your hard drive. It is definitely not software related like things running in the background or whatever. Nothing to do with page file. Your issue was known during install. So hardware.
     
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  18. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

    Aug 13, 2015
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    Thanks for the input. The issue I'm having is listed in the BIOS update changelog. I'm gonna have to try and see if BIOS updates fixes it but I'm in legacy mode and my BIOS won't update. It wants me to update from a USB flash drive. I've prepared the USB flash drive but I can't see my model number in the supporting systems neither do I see the bin file I need to locate during the update process corresponding to my motherboard model. I'm confident I have downloaded the correct package from the page listing the drivers for my model.

    I don't want to mess up with the Bios unless I'm confident I have everything in order.
     
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  19. WindowsGeek

    WindowsGeek MDL Expert

    Jun 30, 2015
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    Do u have another internal HD that u can use u can pick up a 160GB ssd on ebay use for $20 dont need to spend a lot of money.
     
  20. ceo54

    ceo54 MDL Addicted

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    Hello WindowsGeek, thanks for the suggestion but it's a laptop we're talking about, I can't put another drive in it. Moreover, I've just benchmarked the HDD and the result was "performing way above expectations" besides if it was related to HDD, the video player would suffer with all the codecs. This specifically happens with 10 bit x265 codecs which require GPU decoding.

    I think it's related to GPU/chipset. I have one more thing left to try. I'll see if it can fix it.

    Edit: I already performed BIOS update and it didn't resolve it.
     
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